This invention relates in general to commercial size cooking apparatus. The invention relates especially to deep fryers wherein food is cooked in edible oil. Specific application is found for the invention is fast food restaurants, which cook food under pressure in an oil environment, such as for cooking deep fried chicken, fish, and the like.
Restaurant space is generally divided between public space where customers are served, and cooking space, referred to herein after as the kitchen, where food is prepared. Since all space comes with an associated cost, there is a tension between the amount of space to be allocated to a given function and the cost of that space. Once the restaurant facility has been constructed, the operator of the restaurant typically makes infrequent changes to the space allocation. Thus, the space available in the kitchen is generally fixed for extended periods of time, measured in years.
The floor space in the kitchen can in general be thought of in terms of “fixed equipment space”, namely space allocated to equipment which is fixed in place, “transient space”, namely space which is occupied by equipment and supplies on a temporary basis, and “people space”, namely space which must be available to be occupied by the kitchen workers, for their required movements about the kitchen as they perform their kitchen tasks.
As the needs of customers and/or the business change, it may be desirable to change the activities which take place in the kitchen. For example, new cooking equipment may need to be purchased and installed in the existing space. Where, for example, the quantity of food to be cooked in a given time span should be increased, it is desirable to be able to install a larger-capacity cooker. But such larger-capacity cooker must fit into the overall existing space in the kitchen.
Where the cooker design remains the same, only larger in size, the “fixed equipment space” demands of the cooker are greater than with the previous cooker. In such situation, the operator of the kitchen typically must choose between the larger-capacity cooker and a loss of either “transient space” or “people space”. But in an efficiently-operating kitchen, loss of either “transient space” or “people space” can result in loss of efficiency attributable to such loss of “transient space” or “people space”.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide cooking apparatus which provides increased throughput capacity of cooked food utilizing conventional cooking practices, without increasing the quantity of floor space occupied by the cooker.
It would also be desirable to provide such cooker while maintaining the same cooking process, in order that the process changes required by the kitchen workers be controlled, as well as in order to produce an identical cooked food product.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide novel cooking apparatus which provides increased throughput capacity, utilizing conventional cooking practices, without increasing the quantity of floor space required by the cooker.
It is another object to provide such cooker while maintaining the same cooking process as lesser-capacity cookers of conventional structural design.
It is a more specific object to provide closure structure for cooking apparatus wherein the cover is opened and closed for accessing an opening in the cooking vessel by a combination of movements of the cover which include sliding the cover partially out of an overlying relationship with the cooking vessel, and pivoting the cover away from the opening.
It is a further object to provide cooking apparatus wherein the cover actuation apparatus pivots the cover away from an overlying relationship with the cooking vessel and is biased toward such lifting movement by a plurality of gas springs.
It is yet a further object to provide methods of removing a cover of a pressure cooking vessel, which include lifting the cover upwardly to a position generally overlying the cooking vessel and sliding the cover transversely away from the opening of the cooking vessel, and subsequently pivoting the cover away from the opening of the cooking vessel.